[Music]
as food demand grows
the world is constantly on the lookout
for alternative sources of protein
that's why i'm getting suited up in this
factory in dole in eastern france
this is insect protein manufacturer
insect with a y
and ceo antoine uber is giving me a
guided tour of the facility
so what problem are you solving here
what's wrong with the way we do farming
at the moment
there is just not enough not enough
ingredients to feed the animals and to
feed the animals of tomorrow with the
growing demand
the second thing we need to reduce
climate change
and our solution is carbon negative so
we are even
maybe the most efficient way to to
produce proteins without
carbon impact the company's insect of
choice
is the mealworm beetle fed mainly with
wheat bran over a 70-day life cycle
so here we have larvae here you have
some insects
but they are almost ready to be
processed insect uses a vertical farm
which minimizes the amount of space
needed the automated system
moves the trays of mealworms around the
factory at various stages of the process
some adults here are adults barriers
that
lay eggs here in fact the company has
some 40 technology patents
and since it was founded in 2011 it's
raised over 400 million dollars
making it the most highly funded
upstream agritech startup
outside the us
a key market for insect is food for
commercial fish farms
at present due to health concerns
related to bse
or mad cow disease eu legislation
effectively limits
the type of animals that can be fed with
insect-based protein
but the company is confident the market
will open up soon
it's it's a 72 percent of protein so
it's super high
we sell to pet food manufacturers and
fish feed manufacturers tomorrow
hopefully for poultry
and pigs discussions are progressing
well with the commissions yeah and we
hope next year to have
green lights the company isn't short on
ambition
and is confident demand will grow it's
planning to build a new factory
set to open in 2022 that can produce up
to 100
000 tonnes of product per year and 15
factories by 2030.
currently around 6000 tons of insect
protein are produced in europe annually
another french company in the insect
farming business is next protein
its headquarters and research lab are on
the outskirts of paris
hi victor hi bonjour pleasure to meet
you
welcome to next protein thank you very
much please thanks come on in
next protein has been in operation since
2015.
with its production facility in tunisia
the company wants to tackle both
resource scarcity and animal feed
and the problem of food waste
70 of uh what next protein uses as
insect feed
is actually fruits and vegetables so
that we're going to essentially end up
in landfills
and for which there was absolutely no
use so
taking something for which there was no
use and recycling it
into the into our food system the insect
next protein has chosen to feed on that
waste
is the black soldier fly research
scientist heather falquist
explains why the larva grow very rapidly
in three weeks they can increase in size
by ten thousand times
the other reason we use this insect is
because it's very
resilient and adaptable to different
growing conditions as well
the ground up dried larvae next protein
produces
a sixty to seventy percent protein it
says
that in a hundred square meters of
insect farm
it's able to produce as much protein as
a hundred hectares of soybean
in the lab they're constantly working to
tweak productivity
and adaptability this one is actually
the
the whole insects that we ground up so
these are full fats
and uh basically we're just uh looking
at the protein contents
uh in these uh whole dried insects so
you can have full fat and low-fat
insects exactly
so it's basically it's it's adaptable
for different uh
animal feed industries if it's better
adapted for their nutritional needs then
the less you have to use other additives
the black soldier fly market alone
is predicted to be worth 2.57 billion
dollars by 2030
according to research and markets that
explains
the recent launch of company fly
genetics created to breed
improved black soldier flies
the most important criteria is the skill
of the insect to convert
agricultural byproducts in premium
insect protein
but we are working also on robustness of
the insect
on the growth of the insect
analysts at barclays estimate the insect
protein market could be worth about
eight billion dollars by 2030
up from less than a billion dollars
today it's little wonder
investment in a protein source that can
be bred without taking out large amounts
of food
land and water is growing so fast